Media groups warn of job losses, less Canadian content under CRTC proposals

GATINEAU, Que. – Consumers will get less and pay more, and jobs will be lost, under proposals being debated this week to modernize television program delivery, the country’s broadcast regulator has been told.

A throng of frustrated media executives warned of dire times ahead for Canada’s TV world Wednesday as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission held a third day of hearings on how Canadians get and pay for TV programming.

The CRTC has proposed new regulations that would, if enacted, bar TV stations from replacing U.S. advertising with Canadian spots on American shows.

The regulator has also proposed that consumers be allowed to pick the individual channels they want from cable and satellite service providers, over and above a price-capped, trimmed-down mandatory service that includes mainly local channels.

It has also opened the door to allowing TV stations to shut down transmitters, which would mean the end of free, over-the-air broadcasting of television signals.

That would do more harm than good, Bell Media president Kevin Crull told the hearing.

“Merely shutting down transmitters would actually make a dire situation even worse,” said Crull.

Even if the CRTC accepted all of its proposals for reforming TV regulations, BCE may still have to shutter between seven and nine specialty channels, he added.

Rather than banning simultaneous substitution of Canadian advertising over American programming, the regulator could help local TV survive by extending the practice to local broadcasters, said the company’s executive vice-president Mirko Bibic told the hearing.

Stuart Garvie, an executive with media marketing company GroupM Canada, said the CRTC’s proposed changes, if enacted, would hurt the economy.

“We believe that the proposals put forward will have serious negative impact on the media and marketing industries in Canada, leading to significant job losses,” he said.

Barring Canadian TV broadcasters from airing Canadian advertising with shows from the United States would dramatically cut revenues, Garvie added.

The practice has frustrated Canadian viewers, particularly during major sporting events such as the Super Bowl, when they are unable to see the ads that American watchers see.

Hundreds of viewers have also complained to the CRTC that Canadian networks often cut off the final few minutes of the shows they broadcast by arbitrarily switching from American to Canadian programming, something BCE said is an issue that it needs to resolve.

BCE said it also had concerns about being forced to offer TV channels to consumers on an a-la-carte basis, although Bibic said his company supports a proposal to offer consumers individual channel choices on top of a so-called skinny basic package.

But he urged the commission to build flexibility into the regulations so service providers can tailor basic packages to the needs of their customers.

“There is no evidence of dissatisfaction with existing basic packages,” he said.